#elysiadiscusses

[damiseries]

I lowkey hate when people talk about Damian's progress but credit everyone but him.

Oh Damian doesn't kill anymore? That is wholly attributed to Bruce's rules and in no way shape or form has Damian reflected upon his killings and what they mean for the victims and himself.

Oh Damian has made friends? That is wholly attributed to Dick who made him feel comfortable enough to talk to people and in no way shape or form did Damian put in effort himself.

Of course, these people do have credit for Damian's progress. I just hate how people don't acknowledge the effort that Damian put in. They purely consider the shift in his environment and not his willingness to also learn, to be redeemed.

And I think the most annoying part of this is when people say "oh well Damian would kill if Bruce wasn't around". Like EUGHOJSDAI, I'm a firm believer that Damian wholeheartedly believes in redemption. In Robin: Son of Batman, he offers Talia a second chance because he got a second chance. In the same comic, he told Maya that she has a different path, she doesn't have to be an assassin.

He wants to pursue a career in medicine because he wants to help people get better. He sacrifices himself countless times to protect people.

But no let's ignore his caring nature because he's in fact a gremlin </3

The moral of the story is, I hate when people mention Damian's progress but don't acknowledge the work Damian put in.

[damiseries]

Damian would 100% go through a baking phase where he's feeding everyone and their mothers a whole bunch of sweet treats and that is another reason why everyone wants to adopt him.

[damiseries]

Damian would be disgustingly good with children and whenever he interacts with them, someone always tells him how good he is with children.

He always happily accepts the compliment but feels a sense of dread because the last thing he wants is children. Not because he doesn't enjoy their presence and wouldn't be fond of a familial bond but because he never wants to mess up like his parents.

Still whenever he interacts with kids, he finds himself daydreaming about a future where he has one, whether his own or adopted. He thinks of reaching milestones with them that he didn't celebrate with his own parents, he thinks of having the subtle signs of them in his everyday life---clothes left on the sofa, drawings made on arms, he thinks of learning the sacrifices and joys of parenthood.

And always he only thinks. Because nothing scares him more than them turning out like him.

[damiseries]

I think Damian would be the type of person to have a lot of “signatures” of things. As in he has a signature scent, probably something like jasmine, from all his hygiene products being scented that specific thing. A signature piece of jewellery. Or a signature colour/colour palette. Hobby, song, interest, you name it. He’s interested in many things and experiments a lot with his fashion, scents, etc, etc but he just seems to “own” a certain look or vibe, if you get what I mean.

[damiseries]

The juxtaposition of Bruce being a manwhore and Damian being like "Yep, one and done. I'll never look at another person as long as I breathe" is amaaaaazing 🫡

AHH TYY!! I think it was genuinely be so hilarious if Damian's online person opposed Bruce's in every way.

Bruce is super outgoing and out there? Damian is most reserved and elegant.

Bruce is playboy? Damian devotes himself to one person and one person only.

Bruce is known for dangerous hobbies that cause him to be banged up pretty badly? Well Damian works at the ER where there's a lot of accidents and crime-related shenanigans.

Bruce is elusive and lowk in a different country or city 99% of the time? You walk two metres into the city centre and you will definitely see Damian out and about.

There's like millions of people speculating if Damian is truly Bruce's son, not for nefarious reasons, but purely because they're nothing alike. Meanwhile in their personal lives, they share so many quirks and habits.

[damiseries]

Lowkey hate stumbling upon fics that revolve around Damian not knowing things…it just feels so condescending even if it isn’t meant in that way.

[damiseries]

To Damian specifically, Bruce would be those dads that ignore their kids during their formative years (well in a lot of the comics, Bruce has done a lot more than just neglect Damian) until the kid grows up and suddenly they're spoiling the shit out of them and spending a whole bunch of time with them.

Damian's happy to be closer with Bruce but then after every encounter spends twenty minutes reflecting on his childhood and how much this would've benefitted him if he had the love and support from the beginning.

[damiseries]

Guys if I see one more post or content of Damian being vilified to cater towards the whump of a particular character, I'm actually going to lose it.

Like don't get me wrong, characters can have flaws especially in whump fics! I would be a hypocrite to denounce that. I just hate it when people overly exaggerate Damian's wrongdoings, like yes he did try to kill Tim, yes he has been an ass plenty of times. And yes you can write whump around that, it just puts me off when Damian is singled out in this, or he's treated as a gremlin/feral child with no control and an insidious personality.

I think it's let down all his progress. And also I'm a bit nervous about how other people will view that content, plenty of people in the Batfam community read fics/interact with fan content to learn about the characters. Which I get, comics can be very intimidating. But when information like this is widespread, it becomes harmful and pushes a rhetoric whether people are aware of it or not.

Overly vilifying one character, especially one built off of racist stereotypes, furthers those very stereotypes. It's fun to joke about him being a gremlin and demon and all until someone takes it as a open space to be racist or people ignoring all of Damian's progress or even worse perhaps adopting such ideologies, even subtly.

This isn't even just from a character standpoint. Fiction doesn't always have to affect reality but plenty of people are impressionable, which is why propaganda works and which is why comic writers insert their political opinions into stories so much and I wish Damian haters were a bit more mindful of it. You can of course dislike him as a character but considering his character is so entrenched in racism, it's important to be careful about what you choose to criticise and how you criticise it.

It's one thing to say that you don't like his attitude towards Tim, and another to say that "he abuses Tim and scares him to the point that Tim becomes incredibly traumatised because he's a feral gremlin child who needs to be saved by Batman", if you get what I mean?